


Let Them Kiss

by ThoughtsCascade



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bill doesn't want to see her Space Granddad kissing, But Nardole doesn't want him kissing period, F/M, Kissing, Missy Being Missy (Doctor Who), Missy sprawled atop the piano, POV Bill Potts, The Vault (Doctor Who), You know just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtsCascade/pseuds/ThoughtsCascade
Summary: Bill and Nardole walk into an unexpected scene in the Vault, only for the conversation to, as it always seems to when Time Lords are involved, take a turn for the weird. Bill is mostly just baffled, with a side of annoyance at being ignored.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	Let Them Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YourAverageAspiringAuthor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourAverageAspiringAuthor/gifts).



Nardole stared, aghast at what he was seeing. Bill, meanwhile, was snickering, albeit in a vaguely horrified way- she couldn’t quite tell if she was amused, disgusted, or something else entirely. But she definitely found Nardole’s reaction funny, at least. He appeared rooted to the spot, and she wondered whether she ought to drag him out.

Before she could decide, however, Missy looked up, rolling her eyes and sighing at them. “Do you mind?” 

Bill couldn’t see the Doctor’s face- thankfully, because she was sure her reaction would have been horrified had the Doctor met her eyes. “What do you-”

“Not _you_ ,” Missy said, rolling her eyes. “Them.”

Bill quickly averted her gaze as the Doctor turned to look at them, though she could have sworn that out of the corner of her eye that Missy smirked from where she was perched atop the piano. 

Really, given the way her legs were wrapped around the Doctor’s torso, Bill was just glad they were both fully-dressed. Surprised, maybe, but grateful all the same. “Oh!” The Doctor _blushed_ , pulling Missy’s legs away from him and turning on the piano bench _ridiculously_ quickly, causing Bill to swallow a laugh.

“N-Nardole! Bill! What’re you doing here?” He choked on the words, and while Bill _wanted_ to feel bad at how flustered he was, and her own amusement at that fact, she also thought that she might be just a little bit traumatised. 

“Watching you set a bad example for Bill, apparently,” Nardole said wryly, which had Bill turning to raise an eyebrow at him.

“A bad example?” Bill didn’t know _what_ that was supposed to mean, but Missy was snickering. 

“Oh, she’s a baby, it doesn’t count as a bad example if she won’t remember it.”  
  
Bill, remembering what the Doctor had attempted to do when they first met, turned to meet Missy’s eyes, fearful. “What do you mean, I won’t remember it?”  
  
Missy raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re a baby. Babies don’t remember things. You’ll forget all about this in a few… hours, or whatever passes for a reasonable amount of time in a human lifespan.”  
  
“I’m-” Bill began.  
  
“No, she’s definitely old enough to remember things,” Nardole objected. 

“No she’s not, if she was then her essays would say more. Who writes about free will without mentioning Queen Rathika the Fifth’s stance? If she didn’t remember to include that, she _must_ not have long-term memory developed yet,” Missy explained, as if speaking to a child.

Once more Bill tried to speak. “Who-”

Only to get interrupted again by the Doctor. “Actually, I, er, didn’t include that on her syllabus.”  
  
“You didn’t include Queen Rathika the Fifth?” Missy was staring at him incredulously. “How did you-”

“You were reading my essays?” Bill managed to interject, only to get a scalding look from Missy.  
  
“It’s rude to interrupt other people, dear. The adults are talking. And of-”

Bill took the chance to interrupt again, indignant. “Oh, you mean like you all were doing to me?” She crossed her arms, only to wither at the look Missy gave her.

“ _I_ didn’t. _As_ I was saying, of course I did. The Doctor loves showing off when his pets do tricks.”

“Humans aren’t pets, Missy,” the Doctor said in a long-suffering tone, one that made Bill think he’d probably said that more times than she really wanted to know.

“Why not?”  
  
That, judging from the Doctor’s expression, baffled him. “They’re sentient-”  
  
“So are cats.”  
  
“They communicate-”  
  
Missy rolled her eyes. “So do cats.”  
  
“With a proper language!”  
  
“So do cats. And most other animals, I know you speak Horse.”

"You can speak to cats?" Bill asked, though neither seemed to notice, attention laser-focused on each other.  
  
“They live longer than pets do,” the Doctor insisted.

“Not relatively. Cats can live… what, a third of a human’s life, maximum? And they usually live less. Humans don’t even live a third of our lives. And-”  
  
“Well… people don’t eat humans!”

Missy stared at him flatly and the Doctor sighed.

“...Has Missy eaten people?” Bill murmured to Nardole. She was fairly disturbed when his only response was to grimace.

Well… the Doctor wouldn’t let her in here if Missy wasn’t safe, right? Nardole definitely wouldn’t. The Doctor… okay, the Doctor she could definitely see exposing her to a bit of danger, he already had. But not Nardole. 

“Anyway,” the Doctor said, a bit louder than necessary, pointing at Nardole. “You. Out.” He then pointed at Bill. “You too.”  
  
Nardole crossed his arms. “Sir, I must _implore_ you to stop kissing the prisoner, it can’t be ethical. It’s not setting a good example for her _or_ for Bill-”

“You do realize I’m an adult, right?” Bill interjected.

At the same time, Missy pouted at Nardole. “What, are you saying we should have to wait _centuries_ longer?”

Bill was ignored, a fact she was really getting unsettlingly used to. She wondered if any of them would even notice if she started digging through Missy’s things.  
  
Nardole glared at the Doctor and Missy both. “Yes, as a matter of fact I am. Are you even capable of meaningful consent? You’re hardly the most stable to begin with, and there’s every chance you just have some sort of Stockholm Syndrome-”

“I’ve been chasing after him for _years_ ,” Missy drawled. Bill began inching around the Vault, deciding it was worth taking a chance. Just to see if they’d notice. She wouldn’t actually do anything. “No Stockholm here.”  
  
“Might be a bit of Lima,” the Doctor muttered, at a volume Bill was pretty sure was meant to go unheard. Unfortunately, this only seemed to enrage Nardole even more. 

“Even more reason you shouldn’t do it! For all we know she’s seduced you with her feminine wiles!”  
  
Bill briefly looked up from the book she was flipping through- an annotated copy of Good Omens, of all things, featuring comments such as ‘ _This passage screams Pinstripes_ ’ and ‘ _Implication that it’s everyone vs them? Us?_ ’ - when the Doctor made a choking noise. “S-seduced me with her feminine wiles?”

Unfortunately, while the Doctor and Nardole had been arguing, everyone seemed to have lost track of Missy, a face Bill became acutely aware of as someone breathed down her neck. She turned around slowly.

...Huh. She hadn’t realized, last time that she was here, that Missy was actually _shorter_ than her, at least without any sort of shoes on. It was surreal, considering the presence the- _shorter_!- woman gave off.

“Have you ever read it?”

Bill mutely shook her head. 

Missy gave her an appraising look then flipped through it. Despite the impossibly fast speed, Bill got the feeling she’d read it all over. That seemed a Time Lord sort of power.

“Would you like it?”

“Would I… like it?” Bill echoed helplessly. 

Missy rolled her eyes, though a smile played at her lips. It was… weirdly _not_ unsettling. Bill had expected to feel like cornered pray, but instead she just felt… normal. A bit wary, maybe, but no more than she would be before any normal nerve-wracking thing. “It’s quite a good book. And it’s polite to give visitors gifts. Even if they do riffle through your things.”

Bill’s face burned. Apparently she had been noticed, then. “Er… sorry.”

Missy flashed her a conspiratorial grin- this one _was_ a bit unsettling. “I would have done the same. Except the getting caught part. _He_ -” she jerked her head in the Doctor’s direction- “Would have bungled it up, gotten caught, then found out whatever he needed to from a conversation with his captors. I like my way better.” Missy sighed. “But relationships are all about compromise. Olive branches, and all that. So I suppose I’ll be trying things his way, for a while. So. Book. Do you want it?”  
  
Bill blinked. “Er… sure. So- are you two-” She’d glanced up to ask, only to realize that the Doctor was staring at them with an indecipherable look on his face, and her resolve to ask faltered.

Missy seemed unsurprised, strolling over to him. “Pen, dear?”

The Doctor wordlessly handed her one, and Nardole huffed, arms crossed and mouth… taped shut? When had _that_ happened?

Missy scribbled a few parts out- annotations, hopefully, or maybe not hopefully. They would give her insight into the woman’s head, and she could always get another copy of the book. Then she wrote a message in the back, and that was when Nardole finally got all the tape off. 

“Of all the immature-!” As Nardole ranted, Missy strolled over and handed her the book, and the Doctor was still staring at her and not seeming to give Nardole an ounce of attention. “Sir, are you even _listening_?”

Bill took the book, walking over to Nardole. “Come on, Nardole. Let them kiss. I mean, really, no offense but has what you’ve said _ever_ stopped the Doctor when it comes to Missy? Come on, I want to leave and someone needs to lock the door behind me.”

In truth, she just desperately wanted to read what Missy had written in the book. The woman in question had walked over to the Doctor, but the two were muttering so quietly Bill only caught snatches, “ _gift_ ” and “ _favourite_ ” and “ _progress_ ”. She wondered if this had just been Missy attempting to look nicer than she was for the Doctor.

Well, Bill supposed there were worse things than faking it- maybe that would lead her to managing for real. She did seem genuine in wanting back the Doctor’s friendship- or perhaps more than.

Once Nardole had walked her out, she hurried to an empty classroom and opened the book, reading the message scrawled in a surprisingly neat hand for someone who was apparently crazy. Once she had, Bill read it a second and then a third time, not quite sure what she'd expected but certain that it hadn't been what she'd gotten.

‘ _Some bonds are so strong they resound across all of space and time. What’s important is the effort put into them, both people_ wanting _more than anything. Or- almost anything, at least. Apparently it’s bad form to attempt to destroy a planet just because it took more of someone’s attention than it ought. Oops. Hope that’s the advice you were looking for, since you were practically begging for some. xxx Missy'_

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Payt. I'm really sorry I haven't been around lately. Love you bro, hope you enjoy being the dancing monarch, now that you're seventeen. Happy Birthday. <3 <3
> 
> As for everyone else reading, hope you enjoyed. I miss Twissy, but hopefully SpyDoc is allowed to kiss too.


End file.
